


Problems from Outside the Scope

by blasted0glass



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 17:47:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18899584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blasted0glass/pseuds/blasted0glass
Summary: Our main character is waiting in the line before the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter asks her about swearing to God before she can be let into Heaven.





	Problems from Outside the Scope

I probably first heard the concept when I was… well, it was before I was eight years old. I can’t remember.

Oh, I know I knew about it already when I was eight because of a conversation I had with Arnie. My cousin.

It came up when I was trying to figure out whether he or my brother Lee had stolen a cookie from me. If I suggested it, I obviously knew about it by then. Actually, that conversation is something I’ve always remembered.

You want to hear it? Are you sure, I mean, there’s quite a line...

Well, I thought one of them had stolen my cookie. I probably just misplaced it, but of course when something valuable disappears you naturally think ‘It was stolen!’ 

I ran to Mom and complained. She didn’t just assume I was right about one of them taking it--which offended my eight-year-old thought process--but she suggested I try to solve it myself before she got involved. Maybe she was trying to teach me independence, maybe she was just tired. She said I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, especially without even asking either my brother or my cousin if they had done it. I thought it was crazy to try and get them to confess, but my mother insisted that I at least try before I call her in.

So even though I was angry at both of them for stealing my cookie, I went and talked to them without her. And of course, both of them were like ‘I didn’t take your cookie’, because who would admit to that? In retrospect it probably would have been obvious if either of them were lying--they were only six and nine years old--but my cookie was missing and I'd be damned if--

Ah, yeah, sorry about that.

Anyways, after they kept insisting they were innocent, I decided to pull out the big guns. I asked them to ‘Swear to God’ that they hadn’t taken my cookie. They didn’t know what it meant, so I had to tell them. But that means I obviously knew what it meant by then.

Well, I squatted down and explained it to him gently: “Lee, if you swear to God and you are lying, you go straight to Hell forever, when you die, and nobody can save you. So you’d better tell the truth! Do you SWEAR TO GOD that you didn’t take my cookie?” And then he got nervous. He kept shifting from foot to foot.

Lee finally said no, he wouldn’t swear to God. I thought that was the end of it: guilty as charged. He looked like he was about to cry. I was about to go tell on him for taking my cookie, but Lee said “Make Arnie swear too!” and pointed at our cousin.

So I said “Do you Swear to God that you didn’t take my cookie?”

Arnie said “No, I won’t swear to God.”

So obviously they BOTH took it, I thought, but before I left Arnie kept talking, and I forgot for a moment about the cookie.

“I don’t swear to God for anything!” I stared at him for a moment.

“‘Cause you lie so much?”

“No, what if I make a mistake? I’d go to hell anyway!”

“No, only if you lie.”

“But how do I know if I’m lying? I might have forgot that I took it, or maybe I don't know what you wanted me to swear to.” Lee was nodding as Arnie said this. He was probably relieved that Arnie had a good explanation, or maybe just that he might not get in trouble. Arnie kept going. “Why would you ask someone to swear to God anyway, do you want them to go to Hell?”

“No.”

“Do you care more about a cookie than your brother going to Hell?”

“No! I just wanted a way to know you were telling the truth!” Arnie was shaking his head, and I was infuriated. They had stolen my cookie, and now they were trying to make it like I was the bad guy. But then they offered to help me look for it. I said ‘okay’, and off we went. I can’t remember if we found it, but it’s hard to imagine either of them looking for something they knew wasn’t there, so maybe we could have.

So yeah, I know about swearing to God.

You're joking.

No, that can’t be right. There’s no way I’d….

I seriously don’t remember that.

How can you punish me for something that a different version of me did? I’m nothing like my childhood self!

I don’t agree.

Look, even if I did, there’s no way I understood the consequences. Give me a break here. It’s like, nobody in their right mind would deliberately lie if they knew what was at stake. It basically punishes ignorance, not even guilt. Besides, you shouldn’t be able to send someone to Hell so easily.

What?! That’s not fair at all! I mean, how many...

Four hundred times is actually kind of astonishing. How many times did I say 'damn him' myself?

It's not like I knew what it meant! Not really!

What do you want me to do, be paranoid about every unlikely little possibility? Like, I don’t even know how you’d become aware of threats so unlikely. You can’t expect people to be that cautious, it’s not humanly possible. It’s absurd! Why would you set up such an unfair system.

Oh yeah? Well, damn you! Ha!

That’s straight up bullshit.

No, you listen here. If those are the rules, then practically everybody goes to Hell.

Well crap. Wai--


End file.
